look for the girl with the broken smile
by singsongsung
Summary: <html><head></head>Quinn-centric. "She isn't evil, she just learned her lessons early." A tag to Born This Way.</html>


**A/N:** Quinn's history rewritten. I believe that she is a vulnerable and layered character without the sudden backstory that appeared in _Born This Way_, and I just don't buy that that's how Quinn's childhood was, not from what we saw of her life in season one. Spoilers for all aired episodes, the rest is speculation.

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><p><em>How you must have suffered getting accustomed to me,<br>my savage, solitary soul, my name that sends them all running. _

_- _Pablo Neruda (Every Day You Play)

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><p>Lucille Quinn Fabray is born on a balmy May day. The sun shines and the birds chirp and she hardly wails when she enters the world, just takes her first breath and looks around her.<p>

Every year, when she gets her flu shot, her doctor and her mother rave about how easy her birth was, about how pretty her eyes were, about what a sweet baby she'd been.

Every year, from the moment she's born, she is told that she is perfect.

* * *

><p>She learns her lessons early on.<p>

Her parents fight nastily late at night. She hears glasses breaking and her father shouting and her mother screaming through her tears. Doors slam. Her heart shudders.

In the morning, Mommy has perfect makeup and she fixes Daddy's tie before he goes to work.

Mommy says, "Lucy, honey, you look so beautiful today."

And so she slips out of her bed and into her sister's every night for years, and every morning her mother drinks vodka with her orange juice, and no one talks about a thing.

* * *

><p>When she's seven, there is a beauty pageant.<p>

Her mother signs her up and curls her hair and every night she talks about a tiara and a ribbon. She learns to sing Beatles songs for the talent portion, which her mother predicts the judges will adore.

The lady who runs the pageant calls her _Lucille_ the whole time and one of the judges cries when she sings _Here Comes the Sun_. Her heart beats hard and fast in her chest.

She wins.

There is a tiara on her head the first time her father hugs her tight and whispers, "That's my girl."

It's as close to I-love-you as they ever get, but she's only seven, and by her math it's enough.

* * *

><p>She trains hard at ballet, stretching her fingers and pointing her toes like she's trying to reach for something. Her teacher rewards her with starring roles in the end-of-year recitals.<p>

Her mother sits as close to the front as she can get. Her father sends a dozen red roses.

Afterwards, backstage, her sister comes to find her as she bandages her bleeding toes.

"It's not worth it." It's a whisper, a piece of good-hearted advice, an attempt at salvation. Her sister crouches down on the floor with her. "You don't even look like you."

She tears off a piece of tape, shakes off the words. "I did everything right tonight. Don't ruin it."

Band-aids hide the depth of her cuts and she falls asleep that night with her make-up on. When she wakes up in the morning her pillowcase is stained but her sheets are clean. She takes a shower.

* * *

><p>(Years later, she watches <em>Black Swan<em> with Santana and Brittany.

It's uncomfortable, because there are girls on drugs with their hands all over each other on screen, and girls on drugs with their hands all over each other next to her, and she – she's a Christian and a good girl and she _does everything right_.

Nina falls on screen, bleeding and broken, and without meaning to Quinn thinks of her daughter.

That can't be how things end. Not after all of this – she has stretch marks and bruised feet and scar tissue in her heart. There has to be more.

She is (_almost_) perfect.)

* * *

><p>There is a father-daughter dance at the club.<p>

Her sister is older, but she gets to go. She wears a white dress and a ribbon in her hair and whispers float over her head like feathers.

_Look at that girl, she's perfect_.

She smiles and smiles and smiles, teeth straight without braces and lips pink without gloss.

* * *

><p>After her first summer at cheer camp, she tells her parents, "I want you to call me Quinn."<p>

Her mother's lips thin. "That's your middle name, dear. Lucy is lovely – "

Interrupting, her father presses a kiss to the top of her head and stage-whispers, "That's what I wanted to call you. Quinn."

"Really?" She beams.

"Lucy," her mother begins.

"_Quinn_," she corrects. "It's original." At least, that's what the girls at camp said.

Her mother's lips smile but her eyes don't. "Just like you," she says before adding hesitantly, "Quinn."

* * *

><p>Her sister goes to college in the autumn.<p>

"Good luck, Lucy," she says wryly, and backs out of the driveway before Quinn can remind her that she has a different name now.

She doesn't dwell on the meaning of her sister's words. She goes inside and eats dinner with her parents.

* * *

><p>At McKinley, the first time Coach Sylvester calls her <em>Q<em>, her heart does a funny flip.

She swings her hips a little when she walks down the hallway and lets herself feel the stares.

* * *

><p>Lucy was fine for a little girl in pageants and white dresses and ballet shoes.<p>

But Quinn is going to rule this school. Santana Lopez will admit to being second-best. The quarterback will fall in love with her. The students in the hallways will part to make room when they see her coming.

One day, Quinn is going to be much more than a Lima Loser.

* * *

><p>She thinks that Finn is like someone out of a fairytale.<p>

He's not exactly the smartest person she's ever met, but there's nothing better than a Prince Charming you can train.

He has sweet eyes and a goofy smile and he buys her daisies once. He's tall and athletically and basically a teddy bear come to life when he wraps his arm around her. She can feel the stares and hear the whispers when they walk down the hallway together, and the tone isn't gossipy, it's full of admiration.

"We're perfect," she whispers to him once as they lay on her bed, kissing soft and slow.

It's adorable, the way he blinks at her slowly. "I love you, Quinn," he says.

_I love you, Quinn_.

Her heart pounds like it's trying to escape from her chest, but she just says, "I love you too."

* * *

><p>(Noah Puckerman might be the least perfect person she's ever met.<p>

She thinks that's why she sleeps with him.)

* * *

><p>She has a lot taken from her for that one night. Or really, she gives a lot away. She remembers feeling, really <em>feeling<em>, and needing and wanting, and the way Puck's mouth tasted and the way he felt –

But her Cheerios uniform stops fitting and the whispers behind her back turn nasty and all of a sudden it's like she's invisible.

When she tries to salvage perfection, when she tries to tell Finn that the baby is his, she ends up losing her fairytale.

Out of the hell her life has become blossom these strange little moments, like Finn's hand around hers and tears on her cheeks and Avril Lavigne's lyrics echoing in the auditorium, or Puck throwing a handful of flower in her face, or Rachel speaking softly to her in the hallway, or the bump of Mercedes' knuckles against hers. These moments make her heart speed up and the world seem clearer: she is everything but perfect and yet somehow she feels alive.

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><p>In the aftermath, her father does not stand with her.<p>

He lets her go.

She thinks of _that's my girl_. She thinks of how he'd call her _Quinnie_.

It hurts more than it should, so she stops thinking of him altogether.

He probably stops thinking of her too. They're more alike than she would have wished for.

* * *

><p>Quinn's heart screams when she hands Beth to Shelby, like it's trying to make up for the absence of her baby's pulse.<p>

"Oh, she's _perfect_," Shelby says reverently, tears in her eyes, and Quinn does not let Puck hold her hand.

* * *

><p>She tries to put it all back together.<p>

The gym helps her work off her baby weight. She does double pirouettes in the locker room and it gives her a surge of confidence – it's all right somewhere inside of her, still.

Finn hugs her and holds her and kisses her. They sing and cuddle and hold hands. She tells him that she made mistakes. She says that he should have been her first. She thinks that one day, someday, they'll make love and it will be perfect.

And she watches, for days and weeks and months, as he watches Rachel.

* * *

><p><em>You're beautiful<em>, Finn tells Rachel, for everyone to hear.

There's a video on YouTube of the club's flashmob in the mall, and Quinn goes home and watches it exactly seven times, staring unblinkingly at her boyfriend's face when everyone goes still and they all point at Rachel Barbra Berry and her mess of a nose.

_Barba Streisand_.

Finn smiles the whole time.

* * *

><p>She isn't evil. She isn't trying to break Rachel's heart, and she would never try to hurt Finn.<p>

It's just that Rachel will go take on the world and she'll _win_, because she has no clue how to take no for an answer. She'll make it to Broadway. She'll be fabulous, fantastic, famous. She'll have it all.

Just not Finn. Quinn gets Finn, gets the white picket fence, gets the real estate job, gets the two tow-headed children, gets the perfect life.

She isn't evil, she just learned her lessons early.

Finn is supposed to believe in her, because the world will believe in Rachel.

* * *

><p>There is a tiara on her head when Finn breaks up with her.<p>

They're still at prom. The gymnasium spins around her. It doesn't take a genius to guess his reasons.

"But you…you're mine," she chokes out, which sounds horrible, but the tears behind her eyelids feel horrible too.

"Quinn." He touches his cheek with one of his giant hands and her heart aches as she thinks that he and Man-Hands are probably meant for each other after all. "You're perfect…"

It's as close to I-love-you as the conversation gets. It's not enough.

* * *

><p>She sobs in the bathroom, over the old sink, mascara running down her cheeks and tiara clutched tight in her hands.<p>

She isn't perfect, not at all.

* * *

><p>In the summer, she goes with Puck in his truck to visit Shelby and Beth.<p>

"How're you doing?" Puck asks on the way there, his eyes glued to the road. "Y'know, with all that Finn stuff. I know that was…hard for you, probably."

She stares out the window, hands clenched in her lap. "I got what I wanted. Finn was Prom King and I was Prom Queen." She blows out her breath. "And it sucked."

"It'll get better. It's only high school."

"No, it…it was all I ever wanted. To be the perfect Prom Queen. I never really thought past that."

"So think past it now." Puck glances over at her. "Dude, you are way too badass to be done already."

She rolls her eyes. "Badass?"

"Sure." He grins. "You've got a big-ass heart too, you know. So now that you're done with that whole ice-queen thing, you can let another people know too."

Quinn blinks. "How do _you_ know?"

"Q, you're my baby mama." His smile softens a little. "Give a guy some credit."

She narrows her eyes and laughs. "Are you hitting on me?"

He looks infinitely annoyed with her and returns his attention to the road, mumbling, "Jesus, take the wheel."

She opens the window and lets the breeze ruin her perfectly straightened hair. "You're Jewish," she points out, and closes her eyes.

* * *

><p>The first thing she does when Shelby hands over the daughter they share is press her lips to the little girl's forehead and whispers, "I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you."<p>

She thinks that she'll let Beth call her Lucy.

* * *

><p>.fin.<p> 


End file.
